


Blind Spot

by nirejseki



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit, Post-Season 5, Sibling Incest, surprisingly fluffy for people as fucked up as these guys are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:16:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Michael's a genius - but there are some things he tries not to think about too hard. It works for him.





	Blind Spot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrozenPanther](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenPanther/gifts).



The advantage of having a genius brain is that it never shuts off. 

The disadvantage, of course, is that it _never shuts off_.

That’s why Michael’s put so much work into developing what he likes to call habits, or sometimes ‘blind spots.’ Routines that signal to his brain that it’s time to stop thinking. Time to stop processing, time to stop, time to just – _be_.

That it’s time, at last, to rest.

Crawling into Linc’s bed, when available, has always been one of those habits.

Hell, even when things weren’t so good between them because Linc was being unduly secretive and Michael was being a judgy sanctimonious prick (he’s self-aware, okay?), it was still a habit. Michael might’ve thought a lot of uncharitable things about Linc back then, but he always let him in and he never made him sleep on the couch.

After all, Michael always thought to himself, why should _he_ be punished because Linc’s been an unreliable petty criminal asshole again?

The thought of sleeping separately never occurred to him as a serious possibility.

Michael’s not actually sure when or why they also started sometimes sleeping together in the other sense – honestly, he thinks it started when he was pulling triple shifts to get his joint bachelor-masters at Loyola, and that it was mostly to get Linc to stop whining about how he could be out there getting laid instead of serving as Michael’s sleep aid, as if Michael’s dumb enough to really believe there’s anything on this earth Linc would rather be doing than being around him – but he doesn’t actually put too much thought into the whole thing. 

That would, after all, defeat the whole point of this being a blind spot. 

Besides, it’s not like it’s anything serious. They’re brothers, first and foremost; they love each other more than life itself, and that’s the most important thing. This? It’s just something they do sometimes.

It’s not like they fool around every time they’re in bed together – sleep and rest has always been the priority for Michael, and Linc has always, _always_ prioritized whatever Michael does. 

(He really should’ve figured out Linc’s insurance lie so much earlier than he did.)

Besides, even the part of it that’s purely sleeping doesn’t happen all that often, especially what with Linc’s prison sentence coming between them. Even when the whole Fox River breakout thing happens, it’s just – habit. 

A blind spot.

Sara thinks it’s weird, Michael knows. But he doesn’t have _time_ to train himself out of it, or into thinking of her as somewhere safe, and, well, he needs the sleep and they need him to be sharp, so, whatever. If she wants to share a bed with Michael, which for reasons that are sometimes beyond him she does, that means putting up with Linc’s godawful but weirdly soothing snoring.

Michael makes a half-hearted effort not to turn to Linc for sex when Sara’s around, but Linc’s so goddamn easy that it’s hard to remember why he shouldn’t, and sometimes Michael’s just too tired to deal with the feelings Sara inspires in him when all he wants is to get off and fall asleep already.

Sara thinks that’s weird, too, when she figures it out – and of course she figures it out, it’s not like they’re trying to hide it or anything – but apparently at some point she decides there are weirder and worse things out there than whatever the hell this is, and Michael really, honestly can’t blame her one bit. 

And then things really go to hell for a while, and there are years and years when Michael’s the one in prison (prisons, really – so many different prisons; why couldn’t he have made himself a reputation as the best go-to guy for breaking into and out of a White Castle or something?) and Linc and Sara both think he’s dead, so obviously there’s no sleeping with _anyone_ going on. 

(His brain doesn’t have a chance to shut down for like seven years and it _hurts_.)

And then things happen, so many things all at once – Linc’s there, and Sara’s there, and Poseidon goes down at sweet, beautiful, cathartic last – and suddenly Michael’s a free man again.

The first few nights back at home he spends alone, because solitary is a hard habit to break and he doesn’t want to lash out against the people he loves while he’s readjusting back to regular life, but then after that he remembers that this isn’t the first time he’s gone for years and years without someone in his bed (thanks, Linc-in-Fox-River years) and he goes hunting for him.

Find Linc and Sara curled up together on the big bed, waiting for him, is –

Something of a surprise.

“It was your idea to start with,” Sara grumbles, rolling herself aside and waving him into the center of the bed with a grumpiness that is probably due to the fact that it’s two in the morning. “I’m just good at adapting.”

Michael inches into the middle spot, slowly enough that Linc – who’s not actually awake at this point and starting to twitch because cold air is getting in under the blanket – just reaches over, grabs him and shoves him into place like a recalcitrant teddy bear, at which point Sara rolls back over and shoves her head under his neck like she’s been waiting for seven years to do that.

Maybe she has.

“I feel like a normal person would be asking things like ‘how long has this been going on’,” Michael says to the ceiling.

“Good thing you’re not normal, then,” Sara mumbles. “Because then you’d be a hypocrite.”

She has a point there.

“I just mean –”

“ _Sleep_ ,” Linc growls in Michael’s ear, and, well, it might be seven years but a lifetime’s habit is a habit hard to break, and Michael’s out like a light before he even remembers closing his eyes.

They don’t talk about it the next day, in large part because Sara has to run to work and Linc has to get Mikey ready for school, except Linc for all of his ability to love people unconditionally and protect them from the world is actually pretty much shit at being either a parent or an uncle and Michael has to run after him to make sure Mikey doesn’t go to school with a packed lunch consisting of two frozen waffles, a whole jar of peanut butter, and a single stick of celery. 

(It’s not that Michael doesn’t _know_ that Linc is deliberately baiting him into getting more involved in Mikey’s life – for that matter, in real life in general – but his memories of what Linc _does_ think is nutritionally appropriate for a growing child make him just doubtful enough for it to actually work. Besides, Mikey giggles about Michael getting thoroughly scammed for the entire walk to school, so, whatever, Michael can deal.)

And then in the evening Sara has some sort of fancy work event and the only one with a suit in the house is Linc so she takes him, and by the time they get home they’re both so shitfaced that Michael has to lie on top of them to keep them from falling off the bed, and then the next day Michael is busy getting himself a suit because Linc being a better dresser than him, ever, suggests that there’s something fundamentally wrong in the world. 

One way or another, by the time they actually get around to talking about it, Michael’s already fallen back into the habit of not thinking about it too hard.

“It’s the snoring,” Sara tells him, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee as she watches Linc chase after a happily shrieking Mikey in the park. “It’s…I don’t know.”

“Weirdly soothing?” Michael suggests.

“It _is_! I don’t even know. I just – you were dead, and I was miserable, and Linc was...there, I guess?”

“He _was_?”

“Yeah, I was pretty shocked he stuck around, too,” she says dryly. “Apparently his concern about my health as a pregnant woman managed to outweigh his desire to run away from everything. And then I stuck him with babysitting duties for the first, I don’t know, year or so while I refreshed my credentials so I could start working again.”

“Linc’s good with babies,” Michael agrees. Maybe not that great with kids, sure, and frankly putting him in the same room as a teenager is not unlike mixing together the ingredients for nitroglycerin, but he’s surprisingly decent with babies. “So the two of you…?”

She gives him sidelong glare. “Given everything, you’d better not mind.”

“Not at all,” Michael assures her. “Me and Linc have a bad tendency with women we date – though it’s usually sequentially, not at the same time –”

(Veronica had always deserved better than their bullshit.)

Sara rolls her eyes fondly. “Whatever,” she sniffs. “It’s not like it’s all the time, you know? Just once in a while, when he’s around –”

“When you need a break,” Michael says knowingly, taking a sip of his own coffee.

Sara glances around, then drops her voice to a whisper. “Jacob hated it _so much_.”

Michael snorts coffee up his nose.

“No, seriously! It was kind of hilarious, he was so incredibly irritated by it, but I kept telling him that I thought of Linc as a brother –”

Michael’s going to die. He survived countless prisons, countless enemies, and he’s going to die here on American soil, surrounded by loved ones, and it’s going to be because his brain can visualize the expression on Jacob Ness’ face when Sara pulled out that excuse with _perfect clarity_.

“Remember to breathe, Michael!” Linc shouts from the yard, where Mikey is now sitting triumphantly on his back. 

“It helped that Linc kept having girlfriends,” Sara says thoughtfully as Michael obediently sucks air back into his lungs instead of expelling it with laughter. “I think Jacob couldn’t really imagine me sleeping with anyone who was also sleeping with other people.”

Michael shakes his head. Honestly, for all of Poseidon’s cruel cleverness, it’s like he never even _met_ Linc. 

“Either way, he’s around _now_ ,” she says. “And I think he’ll be around for a while yet. Neither of us are going to let you out of our sight for – possibly years.”

That seems fair. 

“I’m not that good at people anymore,” Michael reminds her. “Not at anything other than manipulating them, anyway.”

Sara looks at him pityingly. “Michael,” she says. “Have you ever been?”

Ouch.

“Don’t worry, we love you anyway."

There's that, at least.

"Besides, there’s a decent chance that something - God knows what - will go wrong again soon,” she adds. “It’s just our luck –”

“ _My_ luck.”

“Don’t be self-absorbed, Michael. Linc is _also_ a walking beacon for disaster.”

...true. 

“But either way, I figure that until that time happens, we can just – take a break. Right?”

Michael smiles. The expression still feels wrong on his face, like he’s rehearsed the idea of happiness too many times to be able to really feel it, but it’s starting to feel a bit more natural. 

A little bit more like a habit.

“I call it a blind spot,” he tells her, nodding at Linc and Mikey and somehow encompassing her as well. “Something I don’t have to keep an eye on.”

“Blind spot,” Sara says, thinking it over and then smiling back at him. “I like it.”

Yeah. Michael does too.


End file.
